So...um...yeah

So, I apparently have a blog, huh? It's amazing how life changes and things that once were so important fall by the wayside.

My last post feels like ancient history now. I went back and read through these posts and just about cried. My baby girl who's existence started this blog is going to be five years old next month. How in the world did that happen? Reading through this, I remember that pregnancy. There are so many things that I thought was so important then, now just seems insignificant.

I tell you one thing, that little bundle of energy has kept us on our toes for these five years! Maybe one day I'll catch the blogosphere up on our extended absence. The Cliffs Notes version: Alison has completed our family and we have had a rocky road thus far. Nothing horrendous, just life and all its weird jokes.

In a nutshell, Husband is still in the military. Different location and now active duty but no deployments! I am still at Towson University plugging away. Carter is rounding out his second grade year. Ali is loving life at her current in-home daycare. She is so excited to be starting kindergarten next fall. Wait, what?!?! Kindergarten?!?! As hard as it may be for me to say goodbye to her next fall, she is completely ready for it.

I'm going to promise to come back here again soon. Maybe I will change this blog up a bit and make it a bit more interesting. For now, I'll leave these two precious halflings right here.

And the date is...

June 15th. Monday, the 15th I will have my baby. That is, unless she decides she wants to make an earlier appearance. While it would be funny if after all the planning she did come on the 12th anyway, I'd rather her stay in as long as possible just for health's sake.

But things are truckin' along. I'm starting to get the sympathy glances and the smiles now from random strangers. I guess since I'm finally completely bumped out, they look at me with pity. Too bad I can't be too casual here at work because I would buy a t-shirt for every day of the week that had some snarky comment on it. But, sadly, I cannot.

Carter has been a piece of work lately. I'm not sure if it's just him acting three and a half, or what, but wow!! Each morning is a fight of some sort getting to school. Either he doesn't want to stop watching Disney to eat/get dressed/whatever or he doesn't want to leave the house or gets upset when his favorite song isn't playing at the time of our departure. Today, we had a fairly calm morning until I pull up to the daycare. I parked a few slots further down than I usually do and you would have thought that the world was ending. "Want you to park down 'dare" complete with crocodile tears and all. Then his refusal to get out of the van. Then, his anger at me for picking him up and carrying him to the door. Then, he didn't want to put his bag in his cubby so I did it for him. That started it all over yet again. When we finally got to the class, the teacher in there told me she was happy to see that he does that to me because apparently he has been Mr. Do The Opposite of Everything Said lately. It's just sad that he can make me go from zero to pissed off in no time flat. I honestly hope that this gets worked out in his head before Ali comes.

Doing better now...

Apparently, a few days of taking Motrin did the trick. My back now is much better. I have cut back on taking them and by Monday, the doctor wants me to stop taking it. Hopefully I can stay on top of it now and if it starts hurting a little bit, I can take Tylenol or something to try to keep the inflammation down.

Other than that, things are going well. Still have the heartburn every now and then. That's always fun. But, I'll take it over the horror stories I've heard of other people's pregnancies!

Watching Little Einsteins yet again with Carter. We have limited his movie watching since he has been acting out at school so we are sticking with some Playhouse Disney stuff. While I like the shows, OnDemand really needs to get more than just four episodes of each show on their listings! After noon, Disney changes to all the tweeny shows and Carter doesn't really care for them. So in the evening, if I don't have any shows on DVR, we have to resort to the OD shows. Yippie!! But he has fun. He's really getting into the participation part of the show. For so long he would just watch it while playing. Now he does the motions and finds the things they are looking for. He's watched Chris play World Tour enough that he pretends to be playing the drums when the music plays. I'll have to take some pictures of it...it's adorable!

So, Chris and I are apparently having some desention of how to spell the baby's name. We always liked Alison with one L. But I like Allie as the shortened version. Chris doesn't like it with the E. So, since Alli is the name of that weight-loss drug thing, I think it's going to be Alison and shortened to Ali. I don't like that shortened way as much, but it will work. That way, it's not as confusing as how I originally was thinking. Alison Victoria...can't believe she will be here soon.

I'm still not ready just yet to be a mommy of two. I know it will come, but I definitely need the next few months to prepare. We hopefully will be starting to change the rooms around here soon. Once I do that and start shopping for her, I'll start getting more into the excitment. For now, I'm just enjoying watching this belly expand.

Well, it's almost bath time. Then it's storytime. I wonder how many books we'll have to read tonight! :)

Regular happenings

Nothing really new going on. Heartburn is starting for me. There are days I think there is a fire burning inside my upper chest. But, luckily it usually only lasts a day then I get a break. I've only had to use some antacids once. The baby is moving all around. I'm still not feeling much from the outside, but occasionally I'll feel a tiny kick. If she stays in this position, I fear she'll only be kicking at my bladder all the time. That could be worse than those crazy rib jabs.

I'm a bit concerned for Carter. I think he's showing signs of being color blind. I know that isn't a horrible thing and he will learn to differentiate colors in his own way, but it's unfortunate. Both my dad and my brother are so I will not be surprised if Carter is too. What makes me think this is he has really come far in his letter recognition and all. We played Memory this weekend and he totally surprised me with this remembering where things where on the floor. But when it comes to recognizing colors, he calls everything green. He can sort things at times, but putting the name of the color to the right one just is not catching on. I won't really worry about it until it's time to think about kindergarten, but I think that's the situation. But, as long as we get it diagnosed, we'll be able to work with it. So, we'll see!

Carter's appointment

This is the post I wrote up on my LJ about Carter's appointment. Just wanted to put it here too. I wrote it last night.

"So, today was Carter's hematology appointment. We had to be down at Hopkins by 11:30am according to the paperwork. I just took off for the day to make things easier. Well, we thought we could find our way down there from 40, but evidently, we are idiots. We ended up taking a tour of East Baltimore and even a bit beyond. I told Chris at one point that we were going away from the big buildings so that wasn't a good sign. That used to be mine and Mandi's way of guiding through Baltimore. Drive towards the big buildings. For the most part, it works. I called the office and told them we were running a bit late and she gave us directions. You would think I would know that area better, but I wasn't driving. We finally got to Hopkins and found our way through the garage.

Wow, this place is crazy! We had to pull a number like at the MVA and wait to be signed in. Then we went to a different area to wait to be called back. They called Carter back for his vitals and I saw him get his blood pressure taken for the first time. Yeah, he didn't like that too much! Luckily, I had thought to bring Best Friend, or his stuffed monkey, and that helped him through some of the day. They had this cool chair that Carter just sat in and it weighed him. He's 36lbs and 39inches. Not too much of a difference since his check-up. Then we waited some more.

Finally we got called back. A doctor told us that she was there to do the initial exam and to do the family history. We talked for a long time about Carter's entire life and my pregnancy with him. Then we discussed me and my family's long medical history. Then Chris had his turn but he didn't have too much to discuss. She then examined Carter. After that, she went out to review his file and to get the other doctor. They came back in and the more senior doctor examined Carter again. By now, Carter was getting tired and cranky. It was now after 2pm! They made some marks on his tummy to measure a few things. Then we all sat around discussing what they thought.(Sorry this is so long winded, I just want to get it all out)

They basically said that his spleen is a size that is just slightly too big to write off and not worry about and not big enough to be extremely worried about. They are pretty sure it is not anything very serious, especially since he's not displaying any other symptoms. They ordered another round of blood tests and another sonogram, this time done with doppler. They mentioned that they were going to test again for mono. Apparently, kids can have mono and not even show signs of it like teenagers and adults! They are wondering if the labs before didn't show mono because it hadn't developed enough yet. So, after a long visit, we were walked over to the phlebotomy area.

This was the part I was dreading. As soon as Carter saw the room, he started crying. He HATES getting his blood drawn. Chris had to hold him in the chair, I held Carter's leg and one arm while two techs had to take four pediatric vials of blood from him. I was heartbroken to see him so scared. He kept trying to pull at the rubber tourniquet saying "It hurts!" He didn't even want the band-aid on him. But we made him leave it on for a little while just to make sure it clotted and all that stuff. We left then after three hours of being at the office. Oy! I'm glad I didn't plan to go back to work!

We hadn't eaten lunch yet because...well, no reason. I just wasn't thinking about it. We stopped to eat at John's, this sub shop in Canton that Chris and I used to always eat at when we lived there. Then, since it was my dad's birthday, we stopped by their house. We had decided to just keep Carter up instead of letting him lay down for a nap and risking him not sleeping tonight.

So, now, we have to schedule the sonogram and then wait for the bloodwork to come back. Then after all the tests are complete, we will schedule another appointment with Dr. Casella. Yet again, it's a wait and see, but at least now I have a bit more peace about it all. Two doctors looked us straight in the eyes and said that they were not very worried about my son."

I'm here

It was back to work I went yesterday. Can I tell you how hard it was? I was quite enjoying my laziness during my break!

On New Year's Eve, I had my doctor's appointment. It was a rather quick one and they took blood for my quad-screen. Not that I'm worried about that really but it's another test and they always give me a bit of a nagging sensation. Have I mentioned the crazy dreams I have been having? I do tend to get some woozies during pregnancy, but this time around, I don't know if it's because my one friend had a surprise or if it's just a nagging thought, but I have been dreaming that I have twins in me. Now, twins do not really run in our families, but there is that chance of the non-genetic type of twins. I honestly do not think I have twins cooking, but it's enough to get me worried. So, this blood test has a chance of noticing that there could be multiples in there. Otherwise, I'll feel much better on the 24th when we go for the ultrasound!

But, at the doctors, I was given a compliment that I'm happy to hear but also hope I never hear it from anyone but the nurse. She said that I had beautiful urine. I mean, only during pregnancy can you be complimented on your pee! My blood pressure was great as usual and I haven't gained a pound yet. The not gaining would worry me a bit, but I can see my belly popping out, so I know that things are fine. I had a lot of extra to go around, so the baby is doing just fine.

New Year's night we went to a friend's house and partyied it up. It was our last night without Carter. My parents had gotten back in town earlier that day, but we didn't have time to stop by to see him. We picked him up the next morning and he didn't even want to come home!

He now has a cold and it's lasted for over a week. We have an appointment with the hematologist tomorrow, so I may try to get an appointment at his regular doctor afterwards for them to check him out. I just hope it hasn't turned into bronchitis again or something. He is my kid, afterall!

That's about it for now. Things are going smoothly. I'm not as tired, but that could be because during my break I got LOTS of sleep. The last two nights haven't been great and I don't know if it's because of the pregnancy or just because I knew I had to get up for work. Hopefully tonight we go better.